Award-Winning Artist Elisapie Returning to New York This July

Inuk artist Elisapie, who took home the JUNO Award for Adult Alternative Album of the Year in March, will return to the United States this summer to perform at the Smithsonian’s National Museum for the American Indian in New York on July 11, and at the Summerscape Festival in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY on July 13. The Polaris short-listed singer will also headline the Montreal International Jazz Festival on Saturday, June 28. 

Earlier this year, Elisapie visited the KEXP studio in Seattle for a spellbinding live session, during which she performed songs from her latest album Inuktitut (2023), as well as classics from her previous effort The Ballad of the Runaway Girl (2018). 

In recent months, Elisapie's music has found a new audience thanks to the hit TV show North of North, currently available on Netflix. The series features four of her songs, including “Sinnatuumait (Dreams)” and “Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time)” from Inuktitut. 

On Inuktitut, her fourth solo album, Elisapie reinvigorates the poetry of 10 legendary songs (by Leonard Cohen, Blondie, Pink Floyd, and Fleetwood Mac to name a few) by translating and singing them in her mother tongue. The raw sounds of the thousand-year-old Inuit language give each track a unique and deeply personal quality. Each song, produced by her close collaborator Joe Grass, is linked to a loved one or an intimate story that shaped Elisapie’s identity. Through this act of cultural reappropriation, she tells her story and offers these songs as a gift to her community, making her language and culture resonate beyond the borders of the Inuit territory.

In addition to spending four weeks in the Top 10 album sales chart in Canada, and five consecutive weeks at #1 on the earshot! chart, the album garnered attention from KEXP, Le Monde, Vogue, Rolling Stone, CBC, ELLE Canada, Exclaim!, The Globe and Mail and many others.

Elisapie's unconditional attachment to her territory and language, Inuktitut, remains at the core of her creative journey. Born and raised in Salluit, a small village in Nunavik, which is only accessible by plane, Elisapie is an emblematic Canadian Inuk singer-songwriter. Since winning her first Juno Award in 2005 with her band Taima, Elisapie’s body of work has been praised many times. 

Acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, Inuktitut is the artist's second album to land a shortlist nomination for the Polaris Music Prize. Its success also earned Elisapie two Juno Awards (for Contemporary Indigenous Artist of the Year in 2024 and Adult Alternative Album of the Year in 2025) and five awards at the 2024 ADISQ Gala. Since its release, Elisapie has played over 70 shows in her home country, and has toured in Europe, the U.S. and Australia. 

Tour Dates:

May 17            Montreal, QC @ SAT (Les Nocturnes du MAC)
May 24            Gatineau, QC @ Festival Saucette en Showssettes
June 28           Montreal, QC @ Scène TD (Montreal International Jazz Festival)
July 2              Jonquière, QC @ Jonquière en Musique
July 3              Trois-Rivières, QC @ Le FestiVoix
July 5              Orillia, ON @ Mariposa Folk Festival
July 11            New York, NY @ NMAI (Smithsonian NY)
July 13            Annandale-On-Hudson, NY @ Fisher Center (Summerscape Festival)
July 18            Vancouver, BC @ Vancouver Folk Music Festival
July 24            Calgary, AB - Calgary Folk Music Festival
July 27            Salmon Arm, BC @ ROOTSandBLUES Festival
Aug 23            Saintes, FR @ Festival Transe Atlantique
Sept 6             Quebec City, QC @ L'Impérial
Sept 12           Fredericton, NB @ Fredericton Playhouse (Harvest Music Festival)
Nov 30            Toronto, ON @ The Danforth Music Hall (Uvattini)

Photo Credit: Vladim Vilain